


Find What You Love and Let It Kill You

by Teese



Category: Children of Bodom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Betrayal, Bonding, Character Death, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Violence, but not the way you think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29959188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teese/pseuds/Teese
Summary: Alexi Laiho, in an alcohol-fueled rage, encounters an ancient deity and, in a feisty battle, lunges and him and laughs him in the face. The consequences of this action turn out to be grave, and while battling his own demons, inward demons and one outward demon, he has to navigate a difficult and ever-changing relationship with his best friend, Janne, a relationship that turns out to be more complex than he’d ever imagined. It gets dark on occasion, but as time goes by, Alexi learns a couple of hard facts about himself and his priorities, but when a shocking twist pummels him in the face, will he learn his lesson or disappear in the darkness once more? Because in this story, the darkness is always looming and death is always lurking in the shadows.
Relationships: Alexi Laiho/Janne Wirman





	1. Every Time I Die

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read this story, I would like to say something that may or may not mean anything to you, though it means everything to me: Alexi Laiho turned my life upside down and gave me the courage to smile at those who bullied me; he was a constant source of entertainment, inspiration and encouragement, and without him I would not have become the person I am. His death has rattled me and saddened me, and for that reason I felt compelled to write this story as grief management. I also feel inclined to mention that this work is not representative of reality or how I imagined Alexi as a person and his life story and life struggles. Yes, this story deals with elements of his actual life, but all events are either fictive or reimagined to fit this narrative. It is my personal belief that Alexi sobered up in his final years, but that he either suffered from an illness related to or unrelated to his history of alcohol abuse. This is fiction. I can understand it if you find this story to be inappropriate, but believe me when I say that my intention was good. I am obviously not posting this to benefit from his death; I am posting this to share this story with people who might feel similarly and that this story could be a helpful way of coping with the pain of losing Alexi too soon. That is what this story is to me. It helped me.
> 
> Again, if this work offends you, simply do not read.

The first time he’d seriously tried cutting down on the alcohol, he’d been no older than sixteen and had suffered immensely, and not three years later he’d attempted suicide, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills – and a bottle of Jack, because hey, if he were to fucking die, at least he’d do so while stupidly drunk. But he’d been found. He’d survived. He’d spent a week in a comatose state, and from that time, he could recall the colors he’d seen, going from white to blue to red and so on, sailing through them while feeling ecstatic, and when he’d gotten older and wiser, he’d learned that when you die, your brain releases all its serotonin and you subsequently feel immensely happy, euphoric even, and so death could be said to be a pleasurable experience. Fucked up, huh? He hadn’t really thought of it like that though. It seemed that life offered a parting gift to its participants, and in a way it’d been consoling. Then he’d died again.

‘There are things we cannot comprehend,’ his mother had told him once in front of the fireplace in the small cabin that belonged to his grandparents. ‘Things between heaven and earth,’ she’d continued while stroking his hair, her touch warm, loving and comforting, and as she’d kissed his forehead, he’d whispered, ‘What’s that?’

‘Sometimes you feel a slight touch on your arm – but when you turn around, no one’s there.’

‘Isn’t that just the wind?’

A wistful smile had lingered on her thin lips, lips mirrored in his own face. They were alike. He’d always been told that they were so alike. At that age it hadn’t meant anything to him, but as he grew up, he started seeing where his faults and flaws and imperfections came from – but not until his last year of life had he seen where the good came from. Funny how that works. You’re young and self-conscious, then you’re old and self-aware. His mother was lovely, lovely and kind and compassionate, and he’d grown up like any other kid in Espoo, safe and looked after, but in spite of the normalcy of their home life, of their existence, she’d known a thing or two about life he hadn’t, and until the moment of death, he hadn’t understood. Now he did.

‘No, Alexi,’ she’d said kindly, ‘it’s what remains of us when our bodies lay stiff in the ground.’

‘But don’t we go to heaven?’ he’d asked, thinking about what the priest had said.

‘Some claim that we do,’ she’d murmured, hugging him closer, ‘but once we’re gone, we can’t exactly communicate, can’t just pick up the phone, so who’s to know for sure?’

Alexi hadn’t really dwelled on death after he’d tried killing himself that night. The most thought-provoking aspect of his half-hearted, half-inspired attempt had been the tears, not his own tears, but the tears on _their_ faces, wetting their collars, hands, and when they’d hugged him, words had become superfluous – and the way their nails had dug into his skin, holding him still, trying desperately to come to terms with how he wasn’t about to turn to seafoam. Eyes identical to his had held him firmly in place, and when she’d told him, ‘The other place is lonely,’ he’d nodded, tongue thick in his mouth, and had figured that he wasn’t ready to leave just yet. Nineteen is no age.

After that whole ordeal, he’d spent weeks in a white-walled facility, always hiding in the room that had neither curtains nor blinds nor sheets, always angry, always shouting, always yearning for a beer, a bottle of Jack and a smoke. They’d pushed him to see a shrink. He’d hated her at first, treating her like an enemy, like someone who wanted to tear him apart and leave him for dead, and every question from her had been like an insult. But when Alexi had stopped snarling, shouting and screaming, she’d stopped asking questions. She’s started listening, listening to his body language, to his indirect truth-telling, to his eyes. It’d taken a couple of years for the wounds to close up, both mentally and physically, but he’d eventually felt good enough – normal enough – to quit therapy. Then he’d stopped belonging to Espoo, to Finland, to his family. He’d started belonging to the road, and the road, he’d found, wasn’t amiable. What it lacked in warmth, it’d made up for in cheap alcohol, cheap company and cheap ambition, and in the pursuit of a so-called ‘good time’, the wounds had started opening again, unseen.

His second death had been an even sorrier tale. The road had predictably devoured him, and having always been built like a sparrow, with narrow shoulders and arms thinner than Jaska’s wrists, nature hadn’t intended for him to live on the edge like that, drinking, snorting, laughing, shouting, vomiting, killing. Sure, some legends lived like heathens for decades, drinking, snorting, laughing, shouting, vomiting, killing, and then they’d quit the pills, the drugs, the sexual encounters in the back of the tour bus, the alcohol, and they’d gotten healthier, livelier, recovering from death. Alexi had laughed at death, just like his idols had, and then death had laughed at him. The grim reaper had always been close to the band, but he hadn’t seen him lurking in the shadows until it was too late, ending up in a hospital bed yet again, but this time… well, the look on the doctor’s face had said it all, hadn’t it? Alexi knew he had two or three years left. It’d been strangely serene. He had accepted it, had accepted that the road had killed him, and while he’d tried quitting so many times, the alcohol, the pills, the girls, it hadn’t helped because humans are creatures of habit, and when you go back from rehab to the same fucking situation with the same fucking people, you relapse. He was roadkill, he knew it, and he knew there was no going back.

And here he was, in the lonely place. Around him were family and friends, his mother, sister, his pseudo brothers, and they were crying. He stood there at the foot of the bed, staring blankly at the corpse whose hands were folded and eyes closed, and while the face seemed serene and unbothered by the event that had everyone he’d ever loved crying, shaking, sobbing, Alexi was anything but. How come he hadn’t turned his life around? He’d once been admitted to rehab in the US just to put some distance between himself and his ordinary life, and while he whole-heartedly disagreed with their fucking insane religious beliefs, he’d always remembered the mantra they’d kept saying aloud while holding hands: ‘Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.’ But he’d been given no such insight, no such serenity, and inside his wizening body was nothing but chaos, untamed and unchangeable.

_‘I’m sorry, Mom,’_ he whispered hoarsely while placing his hand on her arm, only the limb felt like ice to the touch and he had to yank his hand back. But she seemed to relax for a moment, seemed to still for a moment, looking over her shoulder, seeing no one, and yet she knew. Turning to the corpse, putting her hand on top of his, she whispered three words he’d heard all his life and yet not truly heard, “I love you,” and that was it. Forty-one was no age, but he’d lived too fast, and especially the last few years, he’d been visibly marred. He’d burned bridges. He’d treated his brothers like shit. He’d become a full-blown egomaniac. He’d lost all his money and had to sell part of the thing he treasured the most, the band, and while they’d all supported him, he’d kept on fueling his own ego trip – to fucking hell and back – and he’d never slowed down. And when was the last time he’d admitted to being wrong? The last time he’d told anyone he loved them and meant it? What a maddening thought. What had consumed his spirit to such an extent? The person who’d been walking around in his skin had been a stranger of sorts, dehumanized, demoralized and dispirited.

When everyone left, their tears spent and their hearts tired, he sat down by the bed and saw the body frail, skeletally thin with hollow, cadaverous eyes and cheeks. It’d been like this for a few years. His body had been shutting down and, much like a grape turning to a raisin, he’d started slowly shriveling up.

He suddenly felt restless, leaving the corpse. What was this place? He was in his own house, only it felt cold and abandoned and everything was painfully cold to the touch, like arctic winds ripped through his hands. Walking through the rooms, he constantly felt like someone was watching him closely, a set of eyes never quite letting go of him, making him shudder.

While he walked the grounds, he couldn’t keep his mind from going back to the wake; he wasn’t sure why the people he’d let done so thoroughly so many times had gone there to grieve him, their pain etched into their faces as they wiped at their eyes with handkerchiefs. His mother and Janne had both made his heart crumble, his mother for sensing his presence and Janne for the expression on his face. There was something like dead hope in his eyes, and hope was a crucial ingredient to human survival. He seemed like he wanted to lay down next to him and die with him sooner than carry on. He didn’t deserve this, Alexi knew as much. Now that he was here, a ghost or a soul floating around, Alexi had nothing but his regrets, and when he went to bed that night, he regretted it all bitterly, regretted how he’d inflicted this pain on _them_. There’s always a price to pay when it comes to love, but he’d made them pay in tears, in pain and in fear, selfishly putting his own needs first, so in love with the bottle he’d rather drown than swim ashore, and here he was, a drowned fish. Sleep never came, but he remained in bed, eyes closed, aware that he was trapped in limbo and waiting for something, a sense of foreboding hanging over him, growing stronger with every breath. 

_Whatever’s coming, I deserve it_ , he thought, his heart thudding hard. _Whatever’s coming, it’s on me._

Minutes later a strange sound, like that of a storm, wind and rolling thunder, had him on edge. He opened his eyes and, in the low-lit room, saw nothing but darkness; it flooded from the tall windows and bathed the room in wintry dark-colored shades, but then, like a black fog rolling in from a hole in the ceiling, he saw a figure billowing out, its body suddenly appearing at the foot of his bed. Like a cloak had fallen, a face revealed itself, a face that was nothing but a darkened grinning skull with cadaverous tissue scraping off in chunks, hanging off his face, blood seeping from the cracks. The most striking feature was, however, the eyes, eyes midnight blue dotted with stars, briefly reminding him of the winter sky in Rovaniemi. For whatever reason, Alexi instantly knew that this was death personified. As he stared at him, stared and studied and comprehended, his screams were all lodged in his throat. The creature inched closer, his frame stretching over the bed like a canopy. His nostrils burned with the scent of rotting flesh to the point where tears threatened to leak from his eyes, and as the grin deepened on his face, an ear-to-ear grin reminding him of the Joker, he felt a surge of adrenaline that made his heart hasten.

_This is it then_ , he thought grimly to himself, _this is the end_.

“Have you shed all your tears?” asked the gravelly voice, taunting him. “I should hope so, for now it is too late.”

Too late, huh? Alexi wasn’t dead yet and wasn’t about to cave in without a fucking fight. Anger poured through him, erasing all fear, all doubt, and with sudden intensity the irresistible impulse to knock him down came over him, and really, what did he have to lose? Alexi pushed the duvet aside and lunged at him, landing the first blow to the creature’s chin. He felt a bony hand locking around his arm and, as he viciously spat at him, he was dragged down to the floor; the counterblow was like being hit over the head with a hammer, making his head spin, stars appearing. But Alexi, being no taller than 161cm, had always been the weaker opponent – meaning he had to get meaner, smarter and slyer – and subsequently had a trick or two up his sleeve. Without thinking twice, he slammed his knee into his crotch and spun around like a log in a lake, getting on top of the beast, and for just a second he swore he could see an amused sparkle in his eyes – and he stayed quiet, stayed still, just waited for Alexi to make another move. He would deliver. Wrapping a hand around his jagged neck, squeezing until he felt his own skin tearing, he leaned closer, his face hovering an inch above his, the scent of death burning his nostrils. With a broad smile on his lips, he laughed him straight in the face, laughed and laughed.

_“Haista vittu, motherfucker,”_ was all he said, and then the orgasmic sensation of serotonin being released came back until he felt nothing. He could only grin. He’d always lived his life laughing in the face of death, and now he’d died by the same principle. When the darkness came, he no longer fought it, but allowed it to fill every cell of his being, filling him until there was no life left, and as he let go, the smile thinned into a tight line, the light leaving his eyes.


	2. Cursed, Crashed and Burned

The blinding lights felt like waking up to a snowy day on the North Pole. He blinked several times before the world came into focus again, though everything remained blurry for a while, and all he felt were the wires, the IV needle in his arm, the beeping of the machines. Glancing down at his arm where the IV needle dug uncomfortably into his skin, he frowned, noticing that the arm he was seeing couldn’t possibly belong to him. It was… thin, but although thin, it was way meatier than before, meatier and paler. Some of his tattoos were mysteriously missing. He started panicking, wondering if they’d removed them by laser, but then it occurred to him that no one would do that to a comatose patient for any reason whatsoever. Then he heard a snore. Wait… what? He tilted his head to the side and the first face he saw belonged to none other than Janne, who was sleeping, his neck painfully craned as he slept in an awkward position in a sturdy, simple pinewood armchair. But… Janne looked like his former self, the skin around his eyes smooth and his hair an unmanageable mane with no signs of balding, reaching just below his chest. In short: Janne looked like he was twenty-five. Janne hadn’t been twenty-five in… way too long.

“… Janne,” he croaked, tears suddenly and involuntarily streaking down his face. It wasn’t until then that he realized that he was in so much fucking pain. His whole body was aching terribly. What had happened?

“Janne,” he said again, louder this time, and the keyboardist started groaning, stirring, and then their eyes met, the warm brown color enough to inspire fresh tears, and when Janne fell forward, hand immediately landing on top of Alexi’s, a sob tore from his chest, the pain unreal, both mental and physical. And yet he’d never been happier to be in pain. Sure, he felt mystified, having woken up to an episode of Outlander. He wasn’t supposed to be here, but for whatever reason, he was.

“Allu,” the younger man wept, hands touching him everywhere, pulling him closer. He hid his face in the nook of the blond man’s neck, crying desperately for what felt like a small eternity, because of the intense pain, before pulling back, wiping at his cheek with the back of his hand.

“What happened?” he whispered hoarsely, looking around the room to try and figure out… when he was. He knew where he was – he’d seen his fair share of white, impersonal hospital rooms after all – but when? Like, what year?

“… You don’t remember?” Janne murmured, but then he just shook his head, saying, “Of course you don’t,” and smiling the absolutely saddest smile Alexi had ever seen before grimacing. “You were… you were in a car crash. Fucking hell, Allu… You drove into the wrong lane. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the trucker saw you in time to slam the brakes, you would’ve been dead!” His voice stretched high as he said this, more tears running down his red and swollen face, and Alexi saw the dark halfmoons under his eyes, so dark in color they resembled bruises. Alexi became very quiet hearing this, well aware that he hadn’t attempted to kill himself after that one time when he was nineteen. For a plethora of reasons varying from understandable to unfathomable, he’d been a down-spirited and morose teenager, but from the moment he got a taste of adulthood, meaning freedom, he’d changed, always cracking a joke when things got dark, trying to find the silver lining in any situation. But the idea of him crashing his car? Absurd didn’t even begin to cut it. 

“I… I have no memory of that.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I… don’t know,” he lied, eyes downcast, probably looking guilty as fuck. Janne studied his face intently for a couple of slow seconds, but when a moan slipped past his lips and he grimaced, pain shooting down both his legs, he remembered why Alexi was in the hospital in the first place: He’d been crushed like an ant under a boot. 

“Holy shit,” said Janne, getting back on his feet, looking panic-stricken. “I have to tell the doctors – I have to…”

Alexi, in spite of the horrendous pain that shot through his body like an electric current, pressed the call button, saying, “I think I need some morphine or something,” because fucking hell, this was bad. And looking down at his feet, he saw that he was wearing a cast on both legs, though the left leg appeared to be in a much worse condition than the other. His head was also covered in bandages. He suspected he had a pretty serious concussion, given that the inside of his skull felt like someone had thrown a hammer around in there. Then he noticed the one thing that made his face drain of color. His hand… his hand had been shattered. His breath hitched in throat as he tried to tell himself that it wasn’t real, that his hand was fine, but… it wasn’t. It looked and felt like it’d been mangled by a bear, and only his thumb and index finger were undamaged.

“Janne,” he whimpered without taking his eyes off the cast. “My hand… my hand…” The brunet’s eyes slid down to the red cast. An anguished expression came over his face, his eyes darkening, and then he rubbed the bearded patch on his chin, letting out a sigh. 

“I’m sorry, Allu,” was all he managed to say, his voice breaking, dissolving.

“I can’t believe this,” said Alexi, feeling dizzy all of a sudden, like he was about to pass out.

“… He’s awake then,” said a female voice from the doorway. Alexi’s eyes shot up to see a nurse clad in a blue uniform, but he didn’t get a good look at her face. She immediately turned around, knowing she had to fetch them a doctor, and Janne still stood by the wall, his eyes wide-open in an expression that was both anguished and surprised, like he’d half-expected for Alexi to die. His heart ached for his friend, who’d been waking over him for God knows how long, but while he wanted to comfort him by saying that all was fine, that all would be fine, he couldn’t. He didn’t feel fine, and what had him panicking was that the last thing he remembered was fighting Death, who, as far as he knew, didn’t exist, so… maybe he’d actually gone insane. He could also vividly remember having been older than twenty-five the last sixteen or seventeen years, so… what the hell? If his twin in the mirror turned out to have dyed hair and not a wrinkle to speak of, he’d be utterly flummoxed.

A female doctor wearing a white coat came in through the door and started looking him over, looking at the machines, doing some standard tests to see if he responded correctly or incorrectly and then saying, “This went surprisingly well,” in a voice that let Alexi know they’d probably suspected he’d spend the rest of his life as a vegetable. “You should feel very lucky to be alive, Mr. Laiho – alive and without any complications to speak of. Few people survive the kind of stunt you pulled off last month more or less completely unscathed.”

Alexi pressed his lips together, feeling irked that everyone kept insisting he’d willingly crashed his car. But… if that was really what had happened, he wasn’t exactly in a position to argue. What bothered him was that nothing made sense. Maybe he’d suffered a brain injury. That would at least explain why him being twenty-five wasn’t consistent with his reality precrash.

“What year is it?” he asked without thinking. The woman’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. She seemed perplexed.

“What year do you think it is?”

Alexi frowned, again looking at the fresh-faced young man standing by the wall, arms folded across his chest. Last time he’d seen Janne, his hair had been thinning in awkward places and he’d sported a paunch, but he wasn’t seeing any of that.

“… 2003?”

“Very good,” she said, sounding relieved.

“Um… are false memories common after a head injury?”

“Are you suffering from false memories?”

“Last I remember, I was…” He paused. He decidedly couldn’t tell her that he’d physically fought Death. If he said something as nonsensical as that, they’d probably send him straight to the loony bin. “Uh, I was at home, drinking alone,” he said, and gee, that sounded much better. Did you sense the sarcasm there? _Really_ , he thought to himself, _that’s the best lie you could come up with?! You’re incriminating yourself, Laiho. Good fucking job._ Because the last thing he needed was to elaborate on the tall tale regarding his alcoholism. And yeah, he’d had some issues with alcohol over the years, often tying back to his lifestyle, but that didn’t make him a depressed lunatic! Unfortunately, they’d already slapped that label on his forehead and were about to ship him off to the madhouse where he could be someone else’s problem. Annoyed with himself – and everyone else in the room with him – he inwardly huffed.

The bird, who was a reasonably attractive woman in her thirties, furrowed her brow, saying, “That would make sense,” silently (and wrongfully) judging him for his drinking habits. “You were under the influence when you crashed your vehicle.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. The tests confirmed it.”

_Am I going to wind up in jail for this?_ he wondered briefly, but honestly, the consequences would be even more dire. He’d lose his fucking driver’s license. Fuck that.

“… Can I have some painkillers?” he asked, wanting to drop the subject altogether.

“Certainly,” she said, scribbling something down in her notepad. “But keep in mind that we will monitor you closely. With your history of substance abuse, we have to be very cautious with handing out painkillers.”

Had the situation been any different, he would’ve rolled his eyes at her uptight attitude, but all he could think of was Janne, staring at him, at the unkempt hair, the purple bags under his eyes, the pale skin, all the things that hinted at him having gone through hell and back the last couple of weeks. The doctor kept blabbering on and on, and then she eventually left, promising to return at some point. A nurse would give him something for the pain, and really, thank God for the poppy plant. He hadn’t ever been one to abuse opioids; his drug of choice was cocaine and that couldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, given his profession. But alright, according to protocol they had to keep a close eye on him, opioids or not, and it wasn’t like they knew what he did while on tour. Thankfully, one might add, because even without detailing his drug use, they were pretty keen on wagging a huge effing finger at him for being, well, unorthodox. 

Once the doctor had left, silence of the unbearable variety wrapped around them, and they both just stared at one another, all words escaping them.

“… I can’t believe this,” Alexi said, then closing his eyes, squeezing them shut. Had he lost his mind completely? That had to be it. but he didn’t feel crazy, not crazier than normal anyhow, so how could it be that he just got into his car after drinking heavily and decided he wanted to die? He’d done many stupid things in his life, but drinking and driving? Nope. He hadn’t ever been one of those guys. It was lower than low. If you want to kill yourself, sure, go ahead, but don’t ruin someone else’s life while you’re at it. He just didn’t believe it for a second.

“I can’t believe you did what you did,” whispered the brunet, shaking his head. He looked heartbroken. So was Alexi.

“I… I don’t think that’s exactly what happened,” he murmured, the fingers of his undamaged hand digging into his thigh, trying to manage the pain by inflicting controlled pain. Trying to think while simultaneously trying to fight off pain was less than ideal, and he knew whatever he had to say about the car crash, no one would believe. He wasn’t really well enough to sound articulate, and let’s be real, he wasn’t really articulate at the best of times, so explaining all of this in a believable manner was actually impossible. Christ, what a situation.

“All I know is I nearly lost my best friend.”

He’d delivered that sentence much like a wrestler delivers a fatal blow, and Alexi, who’d been ready to maintain his innocent till he was blue in the face, stilled, his mouth twitching, a couple of salty tears rolling down his face, making his skin feel tight. The blow had been delivered directly to his heart, his heart still raw from what he’d witnessed during his wake, and he couldn’t really stop looking at Janne because he was here. They both were. Alexi chose to swallow his pride and just appreciate this small slice of heaven he’d been granted, being reunited with his best friend and brother in arms.

“Come here,” he said quietly. Janne obliged. He pulled the armchair over to the bed and sat down, putting a warm hand on top of Alexi’s. More tears came to his eyes. He tried blinking them away, with minimal success.

“I… I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. Honestly, Janne. I don’t know.”

That had been the wrong thing to say. Janne withdrew his hand, his eyes reminding him of charcoal, smoldering. 

“It’s the alcohol,” he said angrily, shaking his head. “The pills. The lifestyle. Fucking hell, Allu, you’ve been spiraling out of control from the moment you first had a taste of alcohol. You’re an alcoholic. I can’t believe I’ve been contributing to your addiction all these years. I always thought it was all about having some good old-fashioned fun, you know? And ‘oh, we’re Finnish so we can just drink as much vodka as possible because we’re fucking Finnish’, because that’s a fucking excuse, isn’t it? Or ‘I’m a rockstar so I’m invincible and so is my liver!’ Gimme a freaking break, man. And all you needed was an excuse – or fucking fifty excuses, and I never did anything to help you! I just kept enabling you.”

“… Uh.”

Janne looked like he was mentally chastising himself and hid his face in his hands. Then he said, “I’m not doing it anymore, Allu,” his words coming out muffled and thick with lethargy from weeks of sitting vigil at his bedside, wondering if he would pull through. “I’m either out of the band or you get a grip – we get a grip. I’ve been… dreading your funeral for weeks. Thinking about what to say. How to live my life without my pseudo brother. And the truth is I’d be miserable without you every day for the rest of my life…”

“I… don’t think we’re in a band anymore.” He managed to lift his right hand, though the pain made him moan and bite his lip. “I… I’ve ruined my fucking life. The hell am I supposed to do?”

Was this Death’s revenge? For some utterly insane reason, he was alive, twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and his hand was crushed. His career was crushed. It occurred to him that this might be a life lesson of some kind, but the thought of not being able to play the guitar was overwhelmingly cruel. When he hadn’t been a musician, he’d worked the most mind-numbingly boring jobs imaginable; it’d made him depressed. There was no mental gratification in being a janitor or a telemarketer. So, what was he supposed to do now?

“They say you might recover,” whispered the brunet, eyes glued to his hands, folded neatly in his lap. “Time will show, I guess, but no matter what comes after this, you’re alive.” Their eyes locked in a stare, Alexi’s mouth going dry. “You’re alive when you could’ve very easily been dead.”

He couldn’t say shit after hearing that. When the nurse came and gave him the morphine he’d yearned for, sleep immediately claimed him, and the last thing he saw was Janne, Janne who’d almost lost his best friend. Janne who’d been waking over him for so many days and nights his eyebags looked like bruises. Janne, just Janne.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated <3


End file.
